The present invention relates to integrated devices, in particular to integrated devices having structures for insulating temperature-sensitive components and heat-dissipating components.
Integrated systems including multiple electronic and/or non-electronic sub-systems or components (e.g. photonic components) are known in the art. Heat dissipation is a design issue in these systems and affects the placement of the components in the design phase of the integrated system. In general, measures are taken to provide efficient heat paths and heat sinks for the components, which generate heat when operated. The heat sinks are set and located to dissipate heat efficiently so that other components in the integrated system are protected from experiencing an excessive heat flow and temperature fluctuations. At the very least, heat flow through them is reduced and temperature variations are minimized to an acceptable level.
Other components in such integrated systems may be extremely temperature-sensitive, such as analog electronic components, e.g. integrated amplifiers, or photonic components, e.g. semiconductor lasers, optical resonators and the like. The performance of such a component may depend significantly on its absolute temperature, its relative temperature compared to other components and its temperature stability.
During the design phase, placing a heat-generating component next or close to such a temperature-sensitive component was generally avoided to keep the impact of the heat generation on the temperature-sensitive parts as low as possible. Thermally decoupling of those components in an integrated system was generally performed by keeping the components apart from one another by placing them in different locations in integrated systems.
To meet the temperature specifications of the individual components in a 3D chip stack is challenging due to the high thermal cross-talk between the components. In an arrangement where a heat flow path for heat generated in one component passes through another component to a heat sink, the temperature of the one component is essentially affected by the activity of the component between the one component and the heat sink, resulting in a high absolute temperature and large temperature modulation.
However, in some cases a heat-dissipating component and a temperature-sensitive component need to be placed next to one another e.g. due to signal communication issues either in lateral or vertical arrangements with respect to the main plane of the integrated device. In these cases heat flow is difficult to control.
Existing solutions use e.g. more than one heat sink element on the integrated system or increase their heat dissipation capacity. However, despite those measures for providing heat dissipation, heat coupling between components placed close or next to one another is not negligible. The placement of the components for an integrated system is still dominated by thermal considerations.